


June 21st

by antokilljoy



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Discuss, Fluff, M/M, Marti helping Nico by sleeping while he studies, attempt at linking skamit to the og story, author loves the parallel universes theory too much, does Nico have a kink for old people?, some days before Nico's maturità
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19404868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antokilljoy/pseuds/antokilljoy
Summary: a bright green fan, temporary tattoos of a giraffe and a fawn, daisies, parallel universes. in this order./or: Nico is studying for his maturità, Marti in trying to help as much as he can (which is not much, but more than enough for Nico). Parallel universes-driven happiness ensues.





	June 21st

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!! it feels like I havent written anything in ages so it's so good to be back <3 this is my first english fic in some time so I hope I didn't mess it up. I tried to merge skamit's symbolism and skam og's parallel universes thing because I'm just a sucker for cosmic love stories. that's it, that's the fic, basically lmao  
> for those who don't know, the "maturità" is the final exam that each "maturando" (last year student) has to take before graduating. since this is set on the 21st of June (and I oop--), Nico is here revising for his oral exam!  
> as always, a huge thank you to bea and eli, my very own (quite unaware) muses. started from '21:21' headcanons now we here, duh.  
> I hope you will all like it!

He hadn’t actually planned it—but in the funny way the universe has of making things work out just how they should, it felt way too deliberate to just be a simple coincidence.

He had been roaming through the small supermarket just a few streets away from his house, looking fo something to keep in the fridge for the following couple of days (nothing fancy, just two frozen hamburgers, probably some frozen vegetables too because his mom had been bugging him about needing to eat healthy) , when he had noticed the small package near the frozen food isle. A clearly off brand Polaretti popsicles knock-off laying there on a pile, trying to convince their buyer with a « only  €1,30 ! » printed on a yellow sign near them. He had already intended to buy something to cool them down either way, but it was the clearly low quality animal drawing on the package that bought him. He got his phone out of his pocket, for once thanking the inevitable mystery that came with having to send messages instead of simply sending a picture (oh, the joys of having a boyfriend who technologically lives in the early ’90).

The previous texts hung before his typing board, dating about 45 minutes earlier

(« gonna buy some stuff for my mum before coming »

« freedom from school has turned you into an elderly who goes grocery shopping at three in the afternoon ? lame »

« at least I got aircon here »

« fuck you »

« <3 »

« does this mean I have a fetish for older people ? I mean, you do act like an old grumpy man most of the time »

« stop trying to distract me with your gerontophilia and go back to studying so you can get a break when I come »

« how do you even know what gerontophilia is ?? have you actually been an old man in a young suit this whole time ?? »

« ….. »

«fml Latin is killing me here »

« I’m coming <3 »

« <3 (I know your secret now though) »

« damn <3 » )

He simply added « gonna brink snacks <3 » and locked his phone before putting the package into his cart.

He knew the entrance code to both the doorways leading to Nico’s house (the reason why rich people apparently need not one but  _ two _ different codes is beyond him but that’s something he’s just come to accept by now), so he only needed to ring at his door to find himself staring at Nico’s disheveled face looking at him from inside with a small smile.

He had seen him in his  _ maturità attire  _ a few times by now, but the yellow headband keeping the dark looks from getting into his eyes would probably never cease to make him weak in the knees.

« I really wanna kiss you right now but I’m, like, really sweaty »

Martino’s reply consisted in him letting his plastic bad fall to the ground with a soft thump before wrapping both arms around Nico’s neck to kiss him briefly on the lips, grinning.

« Come on, I gotta put this into the freezer if we wanna eat them later “ said Martino, while making his way towards the kitchen.

The aircon of the Fares household had broken that same morning and no one had actually come around to fix it yet, so Nico had suited himself with a vaguely terrifying bright green fan that was actually quite loud but apparently did its job quite well --while managing not to get on a maturando’s very fragile nerves.

Martino plopped himself on Nico’s bed unceremoniously after taking off his shoes, unbuttoning a few of his shirt’s buttons to try and cool down.

In the meanwhile, Niccolò had lowered himself towards the desk, shuffling through some papers and then finding the one he had apparently been looking for.

“You mind if I revise out loud? I hopefully will be done with this in like, one hour” he asked, starting to slowly pace his room, like he always did while revising.

« Not at all » he got in reply, so he quickly made his way towards his bed, pressing a swift kiss to the side of Martino’s smiling lips before starting to talk about Tacitus’  _ Germania _ , and his intent to oppose the Romans’ corruption to the Germans’ morals.

Marti would have probably felt bad about falling asleep less than 10 minutes into it had Niccolò not told him a just few days before that him standing there and looking pretty was more than enough to make the whole maturità feel way more bearable.

He had joked about feeling objectified right then (he  _ had _ , actually, learnt something from Radio Osvaldo’s programmes, after all) but right now he simply let himself be lulled to sleep by Nico’s voice and the rythmic sound of the fan.

He woke up some time later at the sound of Nico’s mid-afternoon alarm (he had this weird studying system based on putting various alarms throughout the day --it both terrified and fascinated Martino in equal measure), even though he had tried to turn it off as soon as it had started ringing.

“Fuck, I’m sorry” said Nico, voice a bit raspy, after probably having spent some time talking to himself about latin authors.

« Are you kidding ? I’m sorry I always fall asleep --it’s like my brain doesn’t want me to absorb information when it isn’t actually forced to in an actual classroom » Marti replied, breathing heavily while slowly rubbing his eyes. Nico’s bedside clock read 17 :34. « You wanna take a break?”

“Yeah, definitely”

“Hopefully the popsicles are already frozen enough” Marti said, getting up from the bed and trying to count how much time had passed since he had put them in the freezer.

“I thought you were more of an ice cream guy, to be honest” said Nico, when they had made their way to the kitchen, smiling at the  _ Animaletti _ brand on the package (and really, had Marti not already had infinite reasons to love Nico, their shared love for every blatant knock-off version of common items would have been more than enough. Nico was wrong: Marti might have been the og old man, but it was only together that they managed to hold the supreme old couple power that few could thing of achieving at their age).

“I am, but with ice cream you don’t get… » the sound of plastic wrap being torn broke into the kitchen, “…this.”

What he found himself holding was an even smaller package, with two thin sheets inside.

« Temporary tattoos? Really? »

« They’re not just any kind of temporary tattoos, they’re  _ Animaletti _ tattoos, amore »

« Not even Polaretti »

« Nu-hu » Marti said smugly, while getting them out.

« What is this even supposed to be? A banana with spots ? »

« Why would you say that when you  _ clearly _ got a perfect… _ giraffe _ » and really, the coïncidence alone could have been more than enough to make his whole afternoon, « in front of you? » Martino replied, feigning indignation. « It’s like this was made just for you » he continued, and promptly proceeded to slap the sticky part onto Nico’s left bicep, in plain sight.

Nico couldn’t even pretend to be shocked about it. Instead, he murmured « so that’s how it’s gonna be, huh » and grabbed the other one, peeled the transparent film off and gently but firmly slapped it onto Marti’s chest, right where his open shirt let his skin be seen.

The combination of Nico’s desire to just chill for a while and Marti’s wish to get his boyfriend’s mind off of revision for a few minutes turned it into a race to whoever managed to wet the other’s tattoo faster after turning on the kitchen sink.

They obviously managed to make a mess of water on the floor and on every other part of their bodies before a single droplet managed to get on either of their firmly stuck tattoos, but each of them thought that the other’s laugh was more than worth the inevitable clean up process that they would then have to endure in order not to cause mamma Fares’ wrath.

Small sacrifices for a way greater good.

In the end they didn’t manage to eat the popsicles, because they hadn’t gotten completely solid yet, so Nico decided to grab a book with one hand and Marti’s hand with his other and get them to eat gelato at the park just near his house. They were sporting, respectively, a giraffe with huge eyes and a toothy grin and a fawn with a dopey smile.

Neither of them had ever worn anything with more pride.

-

They were not the only ones there but the hotness drowning the city made everyone silent, as if speaking implied too much of an effort –so it almost felt like being in their own bubble, in a park like any other, under a tree, to avoid getting into the direct sunlight.

Martino was lying with his head on Niccolò thighs, while the other was sitting on the grass with a hand on Marti’s hair and his book placed on his chest, right below the tattoo. Sometimes his gaze would stray from Joyce’s epiphanies in the  _ Dubliners  _ to look at the small arrangement of colors and then at the face just above it, with a faint, unaware smile painted on it and eyes slightly squinting despite the shadow, not looking anywhere in particular.

Niccolò’s very own epiphany.

Closing his book after some time, the older boy took in his surroundings. It had probably gotten pretty late, around dinner time, maybe, and Marti was mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

Becoming aware of his hand sitting on the red mop of hair, Niccolò lifted it to stretch his arms after a while, moaning softly after having sat in the same position for some time.

He then stretched himself a bit to his left, grabbing a few green strands and small daisies laying just right beside them.

Martino, seemingly unbothered by the movement, only became aware of what was happening when he felt the other’s fingers playing with his locks.

«What are you doing ? »

«Please don’t disturb the art »

«What? » he inquired, but he patiently waited until Nico’s hands stopped and a satisfied grin plastered itself on his face. He then took Marti’s phone from his hand and swiftly opened the camera, snapping a picture of Martino’s confused face before showing him.

There was Martino with his big, perplexed eyes and a mix of strands of grass and flowers in his hair, perfectly taking advantage of its newfound length –not like his solder hair, but surely longer than what he had become used to in the past months- to arrange them in a way that would prevent them from falling.

(Niccolò had been begging him not to cut it after seeing pictures of Marti in his first highschool years. Marti simply thought he had looked like an ass like that, but after talking about how /angelic/ he looked with longer hair, Nico had also… showed him various ways in which long hair could actually be useful and –well. Martino is a simple guy. Very easy to convince with some thorough and vigorous demonstrations).

« So now after the fawn you’ve just decided to turn me into a woodland creature altogether”

“That’s right, my little bambi » Nico joked,, lightly squishing Marti’s cheeks together with his hands, before lowering himself and kissing him on the lips.

(After a few months, they had simply realised that the euphoria they both got high on every time they kissed in public would never wear off and they couldn’t feel giddier about it.)

Slowly getting away from the other, Nico pretended to think about it “you know what, maybe I should post this on you instagram”

“You will  _ not _ ”

“But you look so cute!”

“Don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it from the others--”

“Amore, but I thought we had talked about this toxic masculinity thing”

“It’s not about toxic masculinity, it’s about me having a reputation to keep”

“The same reputation everyone basically already thinks you don’t have anymore after all the times you’ve drunkenly told the world how in love with me you are and how good I—”

“Nico—”

at some point Marti’s phone flew somewhere while his owner sat up and tried to snatch if off the other’s hand, laughing incontrollably, before securing Nico’s wrists in his hands and immobilizing him.

“Please don’t post it”

“Of course I won’t, you’re too pretty to be shared”

“That’s right” Marti mocked him, getting flustered.

“I’m only making it my computer background”

“Sounds like a good compromise to me »

They stayed there for a few minutes, just mindlessly playing with each other, before they both seemed to realise that it was time to head back home –they had to get dinner and Nico probably wanted to get some other studying done before calling it a day—so they collected their stuff and slowly made their way out of the park towards home.

The air felt charged, in the way only summer nights can make it.

«I feel happy today » Martino murmured, hoping to make it sound nonchalant, looking at his and Niccolò’s tangled hands dangling between them.

«I mean, you’re not the one who’s gonna have the maturità in 20 days, so…”

Martino laughed softly at that but gently pulled at his hand at the same time, « no, it’s not just that” he paused, looking for the right way to phrase it, “it kinda felt like my birthday, you know what I mean? When everything goes right and you just feel…content, in a way ».

It wasn’t easy for Martino to express his feelings (never had been, probably will never be), but something about the atmosphere made him want to try to.

Nico smiled, «maybe it actually is your birthday, somewhere else in the universe»

« Like a parallel-universe thing?»

«Yeah, and maybe your other self is so happy that he’s trying to pour his feelings onto his other versions as well, including you » he sounded serious, but at the same time he flicked his index fingers on Martino’s nose, turning towards him.

« Maybe he has his own Nico to make him happy as well,» and he didn’t know where exactly that had come from but he was far from regretting it.

Niccolò didn’t actually reply, just stopped walking and left Marti’s hand -not for long though, never for too long- to get in front of him, looking at him in the eyes and disentangling from his hair one final small, stubborn flower that had apparently survived the great Instagram war where all the others had fallen.

He took it between his fingers and put it behind Marti’s hear, slowly caressing his face after doing so.

« They all do, » he whispered against his lips, with the seriousness that the situation deserved, somehow feeling -without needing to hear it- that there was much more than some playful banter to it, for Martino, «they always will ».

Marti simply thought that could easily spend his entire life feeling Nico smiling while they’re kissing without ever growing tired of it.

All the other versions of himself will never grow tired of it either.

They parted and kept on walking. On their left, under the big neon cross of a pharmacy, two bright numbers signaled the date and time.

21 :21, on the 21st of June.

One might even see something cosmic behind it. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter as @resplendenteven if you wanna cry over rames and stuff  
> comments are always super appreciated!  
> see you soon,  
> anto


End file.
